While there is always a lot that we don’t know, nevertheless, we certainly do know Amiri Baraka wrote about us. How we sound, how we is, how we walk / talk / be ourselves. What we do with our lips, our hearts, hands, minds. What we see. What we look like when we are seen. How to verbally throw down in text, especially on the enemies of us.

So, in that atmosphere, here come an up-north Canadian dude, one Jean-Philippe Marcoux, and he put together an anthology of peepers (people who peep what’s happening) writing about Amiri Baraka. Some of them personally knew Amiri, others had studied his work, his affiliations, his friends and foes. Marcoux rolled all that into one volume.

I had the honor of contributing a long essay right before the caboose on the Baraka train of intellectual insights. I wrote a long documenting overview that included historical context. The finished treatise ran far further that was initially contemplated, and was edited down for inclusion in the book. (You can read the long version here.) Called my scribbles “The Overlooked Spirit Reach Of Amiri Baraka’s Terribleness”. You can tell from the title it wasn’t aimed at the academy. Nor is a lot of the writing up in here.

Indeed, as the subtitle declares, this book bares “New Perspectives On  Amiri Baraka”. In a good old negroidal reversal, even got the subhead printed above the title on the cover–all the better to warn prospective readers: this some subversive shit.

The roll call of the 23 featured writers (listed below) is wildly (in a good way) all over the place. Judging by their names, well over one quarter of the opining scribes are female–which is generous (although far from the one-half all such books ought to be–and, for those who say, gender ought not matter, I say, if that’s the case make the majority female; you can imagine responses to that assertion).

And then some of these same simple-ass, gender detractors have the nerve to ask why so many females have so many books coming out. The truth is our sisters be running hard trying to catch up after being frozen out for so long–but that’s another story for/of this here time!

Moreover, what I really dig about the way this book is constructed is the inclusion of 1. a generous works cited section, 2. a short, bio-specific list of contributors, and 3. a detailed index; all of which takes up 29 pages in what looks like diminutive 8.5 or 9 point type.

Truly impressive. Brother Baraka is probably somewhere grinning. He is not gone, just taking a well-deserved break between sets while others hold court on his impressive oeuvre (i.e. body or work).

–Kalamu ya Salaam

Featured Writers

Aidan Levy
Aldon Lynn Nielsen
Amy Arugo Ongiri
Anthony Reed
Benjamin Lee
Emily Ruth Rutter
Fred Moten
Gregory Pierrot
Howard Rambsy II
James Smethurst
Jean-Philippe Marcoux (Editor)
Jeremy Matthew Glick
John Lowney
Kalamu ya Salaam
Kathy Lou Schultz
Kim McMillon
Laura Vrana
Lauri Scheyer
Michael J. New
Michael Samanga
Tony Bolden
Tyrone Williams
William J. Harris